


The Balcony Scene

by IrenkaFeralKitty



Series: Oh, Were O Were [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Corran has some gay panic, Gen, Shapeshifting, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:25:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrenkaFeralKitty/pseuds/IrenkaFeralKitty
Summary: This wasn’t Janson’s usual MO. He was a constant prankster and was showing every tell that something was cooking. And it wasn’t dinner.





	The Balcony Scene

The cold bite of the soda can brought welcome relief to my throbbing jaw. The can was slick with moisture from the freezer and the paper napkin I’d wrapped around it was quickly getting soaked. The icy cold ate its way into my jaw and into my hand, giving me something to focus on besides the ache filling my body. 

This small town concealed dangers that far outweighed any I’d faced in New York. In less than a year, I’d gained a formidable, deadly arch-nemesis. It would take time, but I had a plan to get the perp who’d wailed on me locked up. The streets would be safe again once-

“Man, my sister really clocked you.”

A cheerful voice broke my concentration. Fighting back a growl, I glared up at the man now leaning on my diner table. 

Janson grinned unrepentantly. Out of all of my new… acquaintances… he was the one I was having the most trouble understanding.

“How many times has one of your cases ended with her walloping you now?” he asked. 

“Your sister is a menace.”

“Yup!” Janson preened slightly at what he considered a compliment. “If I didn’t know better, I'd say you were going out of your way to run into her.” He wagged a finger at me. “Naughty, Mr. Private Investigator, you know she’s married.”

All I could do was continue to glare. I didn’t have time to for romance, let alone time to pursue young mothers out shopping with their children. No, Corlisa Janson Raynstaff simply had a habit of stumbling into the way of my investigations. It just happened too often for me to assume it was a coincidence. She had to have some kind of ulterior motive. 

Janson’s face took on a delighted expression. “Am I interrupting monologuing? I am, aren’t I! You are absolutely doing an internal monologue. You have to share. It’s gotta be good.”

“I’m not-“ Biting off my protests, I forced myself to take a deep breath. “What are you doing here?”

“Working!” With a flourish, Janson plucked an order pad out of his apron and positioned his pen over the top sheet. “What can I get you?”

This was another set-up. “I already have a server.”

“We switched,” Janson responded. “Koyi knows we’re pals.”

Disbelief filled my voice. “Pals?”

“Yup! Hobbie says I grow on people like a fungus. Eventually, you just give in and accept my place in your life.”

“He’s not completely wrong,” I admitted. Despite his oddities and an inability to settle on a college major, Janson was likable in his own way. As were the other shapeshifters I’d met a few months ago on a stakeout. Antilles, Celchu, and Klivian made made for strange companions, but, they’d been both welcoming and instructive about many of the ins and outs of lycanthropy I hadn’t known about. Such as this malady being referred to as lycanthropy even if wolves were, on fact, one of the rarer forms our kind transformed into. 

Janson continued to watched me with gleaming eyes, bouncing happily from foot to foot. He didn’t always display this much energy. He wanted something. Suspicious, I tersely gave Janson my order and craned my neck slightly to ensure he’d written it down right. Then, with a jockular wink, Janson bounded away. 

This wasn’t Janson’s usual MO. He was a constant prankster and was showing every tell that something was cooking. And it wasn’t dinner. 

My meal arrived soon enough. Janson dropped the chicken fried steak laden plate in front of me with a flourish and quickly disappeared again. 

With silent alarms ringing in my head, I gingerly inspected everything laid out in front of me. Everything looked correct. There was nothing hidden in or under anything else. A wary sampling of the steak and sides revealed no sign of tampering. 

So. Not the food. What, then?

I dug in with a hearty appetite, wincing slightly as my jaw continued to ache with each bite. Throughout, I swept my eyes across the diner, keeping an eye on Janson as he charmed his way from one table to the next. Not one patron left the diner without leaving a generous tip behind. 

It was just as I reached the bottom of my plate that Janson finally made his move. He appeared at my table again with two mugs of coffee, one black as night, the other packed with cream and sugar. 

“I’m on break,” he said cheerfully as he seated himself across from me. “Coffee's on me.”

Accepting the mug, I set it down in front of me, then waited with grim determination to hear what he had to say. 

Janson sighed softly, then took a sip of his sugary concoction. “So, my brother Sean and Gavin are in the same theater class at school,” he began. 

This involved Gavin? Brow furrowing, I decided to risk taking a drink. The teenager was a good kid. Emphasis on kid. The high school senior had caught the lycanthropy bug a month after I met Janson and the others. Antilles hadn’t shared the full story, but he’d welcomed the kid into our pack - with some conditions. 

Gavin had made the transition from regular kid of living a double life pretty well. We didn’t exactly hang out much, of course. A PI’s life wasn’t something I’d ever willingly expose a kid to. And Gavin had his own stuff going on. Still, I did what I could to lend a hand or sympathetic ear. 

Janson continued. “They asked me to tag in and help them with some troll in an online game and while I was spanking the jerk, Gavin mentioned a theater project he’s having trouble with. Each kid in the class needs to direct and film a scene from a play for their final. Gavin’s picked  _ Romeo and Juliet _ but, he’s having trouble figuring out the blocking.”

“How does this involve me?” I asked. 

Grinning, Janson answered. “Gav needs warm bodies to run through the scene for him. Sean has an FFA thing and their other friends have stuff going on this weeked. I volunteered us. Put on your best pointy shoes. We’re heading to medieval Italy.”

* * *

 

Gavin’s face brightened when Wes dragged the reluctant Corran Horn into the Darklighter barn. “Thanks for offering to help me out. Trying to figure this out on my own has been a pain.”

“That’s what a pack is for,” Wes replied cheerfully. He jabbed an elbow into Corran’s side, jolting the detective out of studying how the barn had been transformed. 

The normally dusty interior, half horse stalls and half storage for equipment and machinery had been concealed by several large sheets tacked to the heavy wooden beams. Several large bushes and potted plants, both fake and real, added additional ambiance.

The PI nodded hastily, looking somewhat sheepish. “Theater was never really my thing, but I’ll do what I can. What exactly do you need us for?”

Gavin grinned. “I managed to talk my Film and Theater teachers into letting me combine my final projects as long as what I make uses stuff from both classes. My plan is to film the balcony scene from  _ Romeo and Juliet.  _ It’s taken me all day to figure out how to stage the barn so it doesn’t look like a barn, nd I still haven’t nailed down exactly where to stand and move without breaking the illusion.”

Wes brightened at Gavin’s explanation. “You basically need us to do a dress rehearsal while you play director.”

“Exactly! I’ll do the final recording myself playing all the parts. I just need a quick way to finalize the details.”

“Sounds great. Dibs on Romeo,” Wes said, pleased. “Our pretty, pretty peacock here can be Juliet.”

“Your what?” Corran sputtered. 

Wes bit back a laugh at the indignant expression on Corran’s face. “Our very impressive and intimidating peacock?” he corrected. 

Staring for a moment, Corran eventually sighed. “Why am I here with you and not Klivian or any of the others?”

“Wedge is working on outlining his master’s thesis proposal, Tycho has finals to study for, and Hobbie threatened me with bodily harm if I kept distracting him while he reviews for his CPA exam.”

“And don’t you have finals to study for?”

“Nope! Classes were easy this semester. All group projects or professors who don’t want to have any grading over the holidays means no finals to study for.” Turning back to Gavin, Wes clapped his hands together. “Where do you want us?”

In short order, they were equipped with scripts and a few odds and ends to use as makeshift costumes. Corran nearly stormed out when Wes started snickering at how far Corran had to hike up the worn bathrobe Gavin had given him to serve as Juliet’s costume. 

“You are barely an inch taller than me,” Corran said indignantly.

“An inch can make all the difference,” Wes replied. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. 

“It would actually be helpful,” Gavin piped. Grinning sheepishly, he explained. “This space is really small so I’m hoping I can angle the cameras and block the scene so I get a bit of forced perspective. Different size actors will help me figure things out for when I perform it. And Wes is a little bigger…”

“I won’t tell anyone that you played Juliet,” Wes said. “Anyways, it’d be traditional, right? To have a guy playing her.”

Gavin nodded. “It is! Women weren’t allowed to act back in Shakespeare’s time.”

“It’s not…” Pausing, Corran seemed to gather himself. He leveled a steady gaze at Wes. “I just want to be sure this is addressed with the appropriate seriousness.”

Returning the look with one of his own, Wes replied. “Dude, I’m not going to tank this and wreck Gavin’s final project. Projects. Besides, we’re not going to be in the finished piece. We can have fun with this.”

“Still…”

Wes sighed. The stick was still lodged firmly up Corran’s backside. He’d have to redouble his efforts to dislodge in the future.

Gavin let out a somewhat nervous laugh, reminding Wes again of the somewhat notable age gap between them. There was a reason Wedge had laid down some fairly stern guidelines for them all to follow so things didn’t get… creepy. It wasn’t exactly normal for a bunch of college age men to hang out with high schoolers all that much.

“It’s all fine,” Wes said, hoping to push the conversation forward. “You wanted to work on the balcony scene, right?” he asked Gavin. 

“Um. Yes. I marked some spots on the script to run through. If that’s okay.”

It took time for the two makeshift actors to settle into the short monologues Gavin had selected. Corran’s recitation was stilted save for when he belatedly remembered to actually act, rather than simply stand and recite. Wes, meanwhile found himself asking about the meaning behind different lines. For whatever reason, this small excursion was far more interesting than any of the times Wes had studied Shakespeare in school.

In the end, Gavin’s cameras proved to be the most time consuming aspect of the dress rehearsal. He moved between the three devices constantly, squinting down at the displays and making adjustments to the different settings. Gradually, he brought everything into focus and he settled on most of the precise parameters of where he would enact the scene. 

“Alright!” Gavin enthusiastically exclaimed an hour or so later. “I’ve almost got everything nailed down. Can we hit the very end one more time? We’re really close being done, honest.” 

“You’re the boss,” Wes agreed as he pushed away from the side of horse stall serving as the makeshift balcony. He moved closer to the camera, following a line of rope they’d used to mark the path that seemed to be working best for the camera. 

Corran likewise sighed and stretched slightly before hopping up onto the boxes hidden inside the stall so he could easily look over the sides.

Gavin fiddled with the cameras for a moment, moving from one to another. “Take 13,” he announced. “Final scene.” Snapping a clapboard to give the cameras a set point to sync the audio, he stepped out of sight.

Leaning out from behind one of the fake bushes, Wes assumed an enraptured expression as he looked up at Corran, his voice laden with as much sickly sweet sap as he could muster. “Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--“

Interrupting, Corran continued the scene.“O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,” he said. “That monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”

Leaping upwards, Wes used more of their hastily assembled scenery to climb up to the top of the horse stall. Grinning and fluttering his eyelashes, he leaned forward. “What shall I swear by?” he asked in a husky voice as he balanced on the narrow wooden beam.

Unseen by the cameras, Corran rolled his eyes before continuing with his lines. “Do not swear at all; or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I'll believe thee.”

“If my heart's dear love--“

“Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night: it is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say 'It lightens.'”

Corran’s rote recitation still didn’t have as much feeling in it as it should have, Wes decided. Well, that would be easy to fix. Leaning forward, his legs clamped down on the sides of the horse stall, clinging for balance. Before Corran could jerk away, Wes snaked out a hand and seized his head, pulling him forward for a kiss.

For a moment, the other man didn’t react. Then, with a sudden startled squeak Corran jerked back and flailed his arms, knocking Wes off his precarious perch.

Laughing as he fell, Wes reached for his other form and relaxed into the change. When he hit the ground, it was as a small form wrapped in a heap of clothing. Digging with tiny paws, Wes found his way out the neck of his shirt and let out a scolding series of chitters.

Gavin ran up and hovered anxiously over him. “Are you alright?”

Wes let out a reassuring chirp. He’d fallen further in this form and been fine. It was why he’d shifted in the first place. 

A scrambling sound came from the horse stall and then the stall gate flew open. Corran looked out, clearly anxious. “Is he okay?” 

“Seems to be,” Gavin replied. 

Snorting, Wes snagged his clothes with one paw and started dragging them into the stall. Realizing what he was doing, Corran quickly bent over and grabbed them. 

Once the gate had been shut and there was a bit of privacy, Wes shifted back and leisurely started pulling his clothes back on. 

“I think that should be enough,” Gavin called out from outside the stall. “I can go through all the footage and use it to make my version. You guys really have been super helpful.”

“No problem,” Wes called back.

“I’m sorry I knocked you down,” Corran said as Wes zipped his pants closed. “You, uh, surprised me.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. Corran didn’t hesitate to apologize when he knew he’d messed up. (You just had to beat him over the head with it for a while to get him to realize what he’d done. The man was kind, but also rather dense.) This one, though, didn’t seem to be sitting quite as well as previous apologies. “Aw, you mean I didn’t give you the thrill of your life?” Wes teased as he stuck his arms in his shirt and pulled it over his his head.

“What? No! I’m not… I mean, why would-“

Laughing, Wes patted Corran shoulder. “It’d be okay if you were a little… you know.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Corran stared back at him. “Would it have been better if I’d been Tycho?”

A red flush appeared on Corran’s cheeks and quickly spread across his face and down his neck. His eyes went huge and his posture rigid.

Wes decided to take pity on the private investigator. He honestly had to expected the man to flat out Blue Screen on him. Shaking his head, Wes tugged at the collar of Corran’s Juliet robe costume. “Come on, take the robe off.”

“Why?” Corran asked, panicked. 

“To give it back to Gavin,” Wes explained kindly. “And then I think you and me should go get a drink.”

As Corran slowly pulled the robe off, he gave Wes a worried look. “I’m not… I’ve never been…” he struggled to say.

“You just may never have found the right person before now,” Wes said. Taking the robe, he scooped up all the costume items so he could return them to Gavin. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

“I known that,” Corran muttered, frowning. “It’s not bad, it’s just, well…”

“Surprising?” Wes nodded sympathetically. “Come on. Let’s go get that drink.”


End file.
